Diverse groups reach 'first-ever consensus' on religion & US law

When you hear about members of groups like the conservative American Center for Law and Justice or the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission meeting with the ACLU or the First Freedom Center, you're unlikely to think it's because they agree on anything... but that's what just happened. On January 12, representatives of these groups and others held a press conference at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC to announce the signing of a document entitled RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE: A Joint Statement of Current Law.

It's a consensus agreement on how the law affects individual, business and governmental expressions of religion. It's not a wish list, because many of the signers have very different ideas of what the law should be; it's merely a joint recognition of what the law currently is. Everybody will find things in it to love and things to hate. For instance...